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As Background to the Political Strategy Aspect of the British Post in Colonial Newspapers in the Mails: Strategic Unification under the Franklin/Hunter Dual Postmaster Generalship Diane DeBlois & Robert Dalton Harris, PhD Postal History Society P.O. Box 477 West Sand Lake NY 12196 [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION A STRATEGIC LINE OF POSTS THE ACTUAL LINE OF POSTS DUAL POSTMASTER GENERALSHIP CANDIDATES Two Printer/Publishers Two Postmasters STRATEGIC PLAN OF UNION NEWSPAPERS IN THE MAIL THE BRITISH MODEL “ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DEPUTY-POST MASTERS OF NORTH AMERICA” CONCLUSION ENDNOTES REFERENCES 2 ABSTRACT Two strategic postal innovations accompanied the British Crown’s war with France for dominion in North America. The first was a transverse line of postal communications overland among the colonies, as represented in a map of 1715. The second was the 1758 inclusion of newspapers in the mail at cheap, prepaid rates by Benjamin Franklin and William Hunter as Joint Postmasters General. Both innovations were distinct from postal practice in Great Britain, and both persisted after 1792 to distinguish a United States postal system. INTRODUCTION Benjamin Franklin has been considered the ‘Father of the United States postal system’ – for, under his Postmaster Generalship beginning in 1775, he translated the British colonial postal arrangements into Republican form. What hasn’t been enough examined is the period when he held the position of Joint Postmaster General, with William Hunter, under the Crown. When the Royal Mail took up the farm, for the mails of North America, from the assignees of the Neale patent in 1711, a line of posts was established across the spokes of Empire 1 – as mapped by Herman Moll in 1715. Whereas in England, with six postal trees sprouted from London, the Crown had little interest in cross posts. The joint appointment of Franklin and Hunter in 1753 challenged the line of posts with the unification of the plantation economy and the Triangle 3 Trade, with their shared interest in the business of the press. In 1758 they capitalized by permitting the popular press into the mail bag. A STRATEGIC LINE OF POSTS Maps by Herman Moll featuring details of British postal arrangements in North America are known in many editions.2 The 1715 edition dramatizes the strategic importance of these postal arrangements, a context which is lost in the subsequent versions.3 [See Figure 1] FIGURE 1. 1715: A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye Continent of North America. Containing Newfoundland, New Scotland, New England, New York, 4 New Jersey, Pensilvania [sic], Maryland, Virginia and Carolina. According to the Newest and most Exact Observations by Herman Moll Geographer. Library of Congress. The map is centered with a large and colorful interpretation of the Coat of Arms of the Duke of Douglas (from 1694) bristling with armaments (by the Treaty of Union of May 1, 1707, Scotland and Great Britain were newly one after much strife). The map is dedicated “To the Honourable Walter Douglass Esqr. Constituted Captain General and Chief governor of all ye Leeward Islands in America by her late Majesty Queen Anne in ye Year 1711.” Orthography aside, the geographer is giving Walter Douglas (1670-1739) arms he did not bear, though he was, indeed, Governor of the Leeward Islands (appointed after his predecessor was assassinated in 1710, he would be superceded in 1716 after being found guilty of bribery and extortion). [See Figure 2] FIGURE 2. Detail of the 1715 Moll map - the cartouche and the dedication to the Governor of the Leeward Islands. 5 Why, in 1715, would such a handsome map be dedicated to a fairly obscure Scot, governor of a handful of small islands? Indeed, at the bottom right of the map is an inset of the whole of known North America, with the Leeward Islands prominently labeled. Two other insets enlarge a portion of the Carolinas, and identify in great detail the strength of the fortifications at the port of Charles Town. [See Figure 3] The geographer’s choice emphasizes the commercial importance of these British colonies. A packet service had been established by the British Crown 4 to serve, specifically, this port and these islands, and the postal business of the packet ships was, compared with the other colonies, very large.5 The plantation economy capitalized upon slave labor to grow sugar and tobacco in exchange for English manufactured goods. FIGURE 3. Detail of the Moll map - the “Town and Harbour of Charles-Town.” Emphasis on the fortifications of the important British port reflects upon the successful defense of the city against a combined French and Spanish fleet in 1706. 6 Supplementing the packet lines serving southern plantations, the map offers, in the upper right corner, a paragraph describing a line of post on land, following the coastal settlements north of Maryland. [See Figure 4] A faint double line marks the route. [See Figure 5] FIGURE 4. Detail of the Moll map: paragraph from upper right, describing the line of post, Philadelphia to New York, to Boston, and onward to Piscataway; listing 15 post offices. Politically, this map was created in the wake of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) that formalized with other European countries, particularly Spain, a peace agreement made in 1711 between France and Great Britain. The coloring of versions of the map, despite being accomplished by different hands, clearly indicates the ceding to Great Britain of Newfoundland and New Scotland (the more southern part of Nova Scotia) while France retained the greater part of what is now Canada, Cape Breton Island (the more northern part), St. John’s Island (Prince Edward Island) and other islands in the gulf of St. Lawrence. The paragraph printed on the map just above the compass rose details the complex fishing arrangements in this area. 7 Laying the foundation for what would be known as the French and Indian War (1754-1763) was the treaty’s requirement that the French recognize the British alignment with the Iroquois. On the map, text that spans Maryland and “Pensilvania” details the background to this alliance.6 The inset bottom left seems designed to underscore what potential threat the Indian allies of the French might pose: “to show the South Part of Carolina, and the East Part of Florida, possess’d since September 1712 by the French and called Louisiana; together with some of the principal Indian Settlements and the Number of the Fighting Men According to the account of Capt. T. Nearn and others.”7 Indicated is a pattern of paths that could link Charles Town to these enemy-held territories west to the Mississippi, and south to Florida. THE ACTUAL LINE OF POSTS FIGURE 5. Detail of the Moll map with the approximate path of the post road indicated by a double grey line in the engraving, with red dots added to indicate five of the places mentioned in Sarah Knight’s 1704 overland journey by horse: (North to South) Dedham, Providence, New London, Stonington, Seabrook. 8 Moll’s “road” – the King’s Road 8 - was not a true thoroughfare. The experience of post riders just before the Act of Queen Anne is best imagined by reading Sarah Kemble Knight’s recounting of a journey she took in 1704 from Boston to New York by horse, accompanied for part of the way by successive post riders (whom she called guides).9 Her first post rider was met at Dedham, south of Boston, and where, at that time, the so-called Western Post met the Eastern (according to Moll’s map, the Western mail from New York, was exchanged with the Eastern at Seabrook, or Saybrook, on Long Island Sound). Crossing the river at Providence on Narragansett Bay was managed, barely, by canoe. And to make about 20 miles per day the post rider and Mrs. Knight sometimes traveled into the night, trees pressing in from both sides on the narrow path. She let the post rider cross the Paukataug River without her, as the water was so high, choosing to stay on the east side before venturing over to Stonington at low tide. These post riders carried the mails, but also whatever other merchandise they could contract for. They might have carried imported, but not yet American, newspapers. The first paper in North America was published by the postmaster in Boston the same year as Kemble’s journey, but none were recorded carried by her guides.10 DUAL POSTMASTER GENERALSHIP At mid eighteenth century, the British Crown needed to replace their overseer of the North American line of posts. CANDIDATES 9 Two Printer/Publishers After his printing apprenticeship in Boston, his print shop experience in Philadelphia, and his typesetting in London in the 1720s, Benjamin Franklin imported a press from England and became the official printer for the Province of Pennsylvania (The General Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, For all the British Plantations in America 1741), publishing also the newspaper of record (The Pennsylvania Gazette 1729), as well as operating as a job printer often engaged in his own projects (Poor Richard’s Almanack 1733). In 1748, Franklin sold his press and retired to other activities. In Williamsburg, William Hunter (a generation younger than Franklin) was apprenticed to the official printer for the Colony of Virginia, William Parks, in 1745 and, two years after Parks’s death in 1750, took over that role. As with Franklin, publishing was split between public works (A Collection of all the Acts of Assembly, Now in Force, in the Colony of Virginia 1733 under Parks), the newspaper of record (The Virginia Gazette 1751), and job printing (Virginia Almanack 1751). He, too, imported his printing supplies from London.
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